5 ms·

Pickle is definitely the right word. Achar is a Persian loan word in Hindi. There's no good reason to use that as a standard term when writing in English. Both

by qart 3y ago

Pickle is definitely the right word. Achar is a Persian loan word in Hindi. There's no good reason to use that as a standard term when writing in English. Both pickle and achar would sound alien to my great-grandparents, who spoke neither English nor Hindi. They would use the term uppinakaayi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Asian_pickle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Asian_pickle

19f191ty 3y ago
Achar is not a Persian loan word in Hindi. Just because it's similar to the Persian word doesn't mean it's a loan word. Ancient Persian (Avestan) and Sanskrit were extremely similar to each other (basically the same language). So there are many old concepts and ideas that have the same words in the two languages. Achar is one of them, it's possibly a much older word.
- danans 3y ago
  What is the Indo-Iranian etymology you are proposing? There is no attested word "achaara" referring to a pickle in any Sanskrit dictionary I know of (I just checked several). The standard Sanskrit words for pickle have very clear analyses, i.e. avaleha ("licked down"). A similar analysis of "achaara" in Sanskrit would lead to a nonsense meaning of "not-moving". Whereas, there is a clearly related Persian word "achaar" for a similarly preserved food, which apparently doesn't appear in any Indian texts prior to Mughal rule of South Asia. Even if there were a shared Avestan/Sanskrit antecedent, many words that share a common ancestor in those languages got re-borrowed in their Persian form into Hindi during Mughal rule. For example, the common Hindi word "garam", meaning hot, is a direct borrowing from Persian "garm". It replaced a related word for hot/heat from Sanskrit: "gharma" (the loss of original aspiration on the "g" is a feature of Persian). Both words share the same origin, but the Persian version is the one used across South Asia today. Similarly, Hindi "chaador" meaning "blanket", is a Persian borrowing that also has a Sanskrit cognate "chhaadana" meaning "cover".
  - fuzztester 3y ago
    >any Sanskrit dictionary I know of (I just checked several) What are those Sanskrit dictionaries you checked? I'm not saying you are wrong, I just want Sanskrit resources, since I know it some and am interested in it.
    - danans 3y ago
      > What are those Sanskrit dictionaries you checked? I like the Cologne Digital Sanskrit Dictionaries site, which hosts several different dictionaries and has a powerful search interface. https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/ https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/
      - fuzztester 3y ago
        Thanks, sounds good, will check it.
  - fuzztester 3y ago
    >A similar analysis of "achaara" in Sanskrit would lead to a nonsense meaning of "not-moving". I think "non-moving" in Sanskrit should be "achara", not "achaara", i.e. a short "a" sound, not a long one, for the second syllable. Similar to the word ”nishaachara" which means "night-moving”, referring to demons. I studied Sanskrit for 5 years total in school and college, so although I am somewhat rusty now, I think what I said is right.
    - danans 3y ago
      > I think "non-moving" in Sanskrit should be "achara", not "achaara", i.e. a short "a" sound, not a long one, for the second syllable. Thanks for the correction. Yes, "achaara" is non moving. "achara" simply doesn't exist AFAICT, so my point stands that it's a Persian borrowing, not a Sanskrit derivative.
      - fuzztester 3y ago
        >Thanks for the correction. Welcome. But you switched them around below in your reply, compared to what I said above: >Yes, "achaara" is non moving. "achara" simply doesn't exist AFAICT, so my point stands that it's a Persian borrowing, not a Sanskrit derivative. And regarding words that "don't exist": in Sanskrit, anyone can make up words, by combining other existing words, as I think (but am not sure) is the case in German. Both Sanskrit poets and prose writers often do, but literally anyone can, including you and me, as long as the rules for making words up are followed. I don't have a citation for this, but interested people can look it up somewhere.
- schoen 3y ago
  The concept you're describing is a "cognate". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognate
OJFord 3y ago
I grew up (British) with it called pickle, sure we also had pickled onions^ etc. which are quite different, but that doesn't mean it's wrongly translated - for one thing they've both been through the pickling process; for another (perhaps more importantly as a layman term) everyone understands it as pickle. I don't know what they think would be a better translation (i.e. explicitly not just borrowing achar ourselves too) - salsa maybe? Seems weird to use a loan word from a completely different culture for a different preserve, and anyway I suspect Britain had achar before salsa. (^Anyway you would never say 'pass the pickle' for pickled onions, maybe something like piccalilli, which is relatively achar like! Although I'm not sure how good an argument that is, it probably was colonially achar-inspired, heavily uses yellow mustard seed which I think isn't/wasn't cultivated here (for harvest of seeds for culinary use I mean).)

by qart 3y ago

19f191ty 3y ago

Achar is not a Persian loan word in Hindi. Just because it's similar to the Persian word doesn't mean it's a loan word. Ancient Persian (Avestan) and Sanskrit were extremely similar to each other (basically the same language). So there are many old concepts and ideas that have the same words in the two languages. Achar is one of them, it's possibly a much older word.

danans 3y ago
What is the Indo-Iranian etymology you are proposing? There is no attested word "achaara" referring to a pickle in any Sanskrit dictionary I know of (I just checked several). The standard Sanskrit words for pickle have very clear analyses, i.e. avaleha ("licked down"). A similar analysis of "achaara" in Sanskrit would lead to a nonsense meaning of "not-moving". Whereas, there is a clearly related Persian word "achaar" for a similarly preserved food, which apparently doesn't appear in any Indian texts prior to Mughal rule of South Asia. Even if there were a shared Avestan/Sanskrit antecedent, many words that share a common ancestor in those languages got re-borrowed in their Persian form into Hindi during Mughal rule. For example, the common Hindi word "garam", meaning hot, is a direct borrowing from Persian "garm". It replaced a related word for hot/heat from Sanskrit: "gharma" (the loss of original aspiration on the "g" is a feature of Persian). Both words share the same origin, but the Persian version is the one used across South Asia today. Similarly, Hindi "chaador" meaning "blanket", is a Persian borrowing that also has a Sanskrit cognate "chhaadana" meaning "cover".
- fuzztester 3y ago
  >any Sanskrit dictionary I know of (I just checked several) What are those Sanskrit dictionaries you checked? I'm not saying you are wrong, I just want Sanskrit resources, since I know it some and am interested in it.
  - danans 3y ago
    > What are those Sanskrit dictionaries you checked? I like the Cologne Digital Sanskrit Dictionaries site, which hosts several different dictionaries and has a powerful search interface. https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/ https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/
    - fuzztester 3y ago
      Thanks, sounds good, will check it.
- fuzztester 3y ago
  >A similar analysis of "achaara" in Sanskrit would lead to a nonsense meaning of "not-moving". I think "non-moving" in Sanskrit should be "achara", not "achaara", i.e. a short "a" sound, not a long one, for the second syllable. Similar to the word ”nishaachara" which means "night-moving”, referring to demons. I studied Sanskrit for 5 years total in school and college, so although I am somewhat rusty now, I think what I said is right.
  - danans 3y ago
    > I think "non-moving" in Sanskrit should be "achara", not "achaara", i.e. a short "a" sound, not a long one, for the second syllable. Thanks for the correction. Yes, "achaara" is non moving. "achara" simply doesn't exist AFAICT, so my point stands that it's a Persian borrowing, not a Sanskrit derivative.
    - fuzztester 3y ago
      >Thanks for the correction. Welcome. But you switched them around below in your reply, compared to what I said above: >Yes, "achaara" is non moving. "achara" simply doesn't exist AFAICT, so my point stands that it's a Persian borrowing, not a Sanskrit derivative. And regarding words that "don't exist": in Sanskrit, anyone can make up words, by combining other existing words, as I think (but am not sure) is the case in German. Both Sanskrit poets and prose writers often do, but literally anyone can, including you and me, as long as the rules for making words up are followed. I don't have a citation for this, but interested people can look it up somewhere.
schoen 3y ago
The concept you're describing is a "cognate". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognate

OJFord 3y ago

I grew up (British) with it called pickle, sure we also had pickled onions^ etc. which are quite different, but that doesn't mean it's wrongly translated - for one thing they've both been through the pickling process; for another (perhaps more importantly as a layman term) everyone understands it as pickle. I don't know what they think would be a better translation (i.e. explicitly not just borrowing achar ourselves too) - salsa maybe? Seems weird to use a loan word from a completely different culture for a different preserve, and anyway I suspect Britain had achar before salsa. (^Anyway you would never say 'pass the pickle' for pickled onions, maybe something like piccalilli, which is relatively achar like! Although I'm not sure how good an argument that is, it probably was colonially achar-inspired, heavily uses yellow mustard seed which I think isn't/wasn't cultivated here (for harvest of seeds for culinary use I mean).)